


all ears

by leitmotifs (orphan_account)



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: AU, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 07:51:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/937439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/leitmotifs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Niall is sick, sneezes, and grows a set of rabbit ears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	all ears

**Author's Note:**

> prompts were!  
> 
> 
> as a note, that little bit at the end is fake, ok. i generated it. uwu
> 
> [on tumblr](http://justlogorrheic.tumblr.com/post/59019061523/all-ears-harry-niall)

Harry and Liam are in the kitchen making breakfast when Niall trudges in, sniffling and clutching a comforter around himself.

“Feel okay, Ni?” Harry asks sympathetically, and Niall groans and lets his head thunk on the counter.

“Don’t get your hair in the vegetables,” chides Liam gently, pulling the cutting board away from Niall’s hair. The blond boy emits another groan but does lift his head from the counter.

“I’m going to die,” Niall declares, his stuffy nose making his accent sound even thicker, and then sneezes, disappearing momentarily below the other side of the counter.

Harry sets aside his knife, trying very hard not to laugh (because that would be insensitive).

When Niall straightens back up, Liam drops his half cut carrot and Harry is glad that he set down his knife, else he would have dropped it too and severed someone’s limb.

“What’re you two lookin’ at?” Niall asks with the grumpiness of a sick, rumpled Irishman.

Liam turns to Harry and Harry turns to Liam and—

—neither of them knows what to say.

 “Are you…” Liam starts, but he trails off, still looking wide-eyed at Niall’s head – no, the _things_ on top of Niall’s head – and Niall makes in impatient noise.

“I think what Liam means to say, is,” Harry tilts his head, more curious and amused than anything, “how long have you had rabbit ears, Nialler?”

 

_

 

They all react a little differently to it.

They’re all shocked, including Harry (his boyfriend grew rabbit ears?) and of course Niall (“ _I grew fucking rabbit ears!_ ”).

Niall’s shrieks of horror wake Louis and Zayn, and not a few minutes after the startling discovery, Louis comes crashing into the kitchen with bed hair and wild eyes. “Where’s the spider?” he demands breathlessly, and only then does Harry notice the shoe he’s wielding.

“No spider…” Liam says weakly. He points down the hall, where Niall has rabbited (ha!) off to, presumably to look at himself in a mirror.

Harry picks up the comforter that Niall has abandoned in his haste, folding it in his arms as he considers the situation. Maybe they just saw wrong.

They hear another loud wail, followed by the heavy slam of the bathroom door.

Zayn appears in the doorway, rubbing his eyes and looking mildly irritated. “What’s happening now?”

Liam still appears shell-shocked, so Harry reckons it will be up to him to tell the others. “Niall has bunny ears,” he says with a shrug, then goes back to the cutting board. He has an omelet to make.

Giving a loud, exaggerated sigh, Louis drops his shoe and makes his way to the bathroom. “Ni? Everything okay?”

“No!” comes the distraught reply.

“Well, then, open up the door and let me help.”

Harry listens to the sounds of Louis struggling with the locked door, while Niall continues to wail things that are mostly incoherent.

“Is this real life?” Liam ponders out loud.

“I think we’re all drunk and having the same weird dream,” Harry says, and yes, that must be it.

 

_

 

It’s not.

After Louis fails to make any progress and Harry assigns Liam the task of watching the omelets cook, the curly haired boy goes to the bathroom himself.

“I think he’s having a meltdown in there.” Louis throws his hands up, obviously giving up.

Harry puts a hand on the doorknob and knocks with the other. “Niall?” he calls gently. “Let me in, please.”

Niall shouts something back that vaguely resembles, “I’m a freak!”

“No, you’re not, Nialler,” Harry continues in what he hopes is a calm, soothing voice. He certainly doesn’t feel calm and soothing. “I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation as to why you have—“

The door suddenly opens, and Harry finds himself with an armful of limbs, blond hair, and…fur?

“What the hell,” Louis says behind him.

Harry gingerly touches one of the bunny ears in his face. It twitches, and Niall looks up from where he’s buried his face into his chest. He’s still sniffling, and that combined with his slightly red nose and watery blue eyes, he looks pretty god damn adorable.

Harry peers over his shoulder. He offers Niall a trying smile. “At least you didn’t sprout a tail?”

 

_

 

He leads Niall to the living room, where Louis and Zayn promptly sidle up on both sides of the blond.

 “Jesus,” Zayn exhales, a hand close to one of Niall’s furry ears but not actually touching it, as if he’s afraid to, “what did you guys do to him?”

As far as they can tell, the ears are the only new developments on Niall’s body. They’re not that tall, maybe about five or six inches high. They’re not exactly on top of his head, but just a little above his ears. The fur is a brown, matching with Niall’s natural hair color.

“Us!” Liam echoes, sounding scandalized. “We didn’t do anything! He just sneezed and—they appeared!”

“Oh, Nialler,” Louis coos, snaking his arms around Niall’s shoulders and cuddling in close. “These ears really suit you.” He’s grinning widely, and he’s not as shy as Zayn is; he takes to stroking one of Niall’s newly grown ears, making the smaller boy’s cheeks flush.

Harry doesn’t know what to think of his two best mates sandwiching his boyfriend like that.

A mature person probably would have kindly asked them to move.

So Harry pulls Niall from the two lads’ arms – “Oi!” Louis shouts indignantly – and situates them both on the other armchair. “Mine,” Harry says, wrapping his arms around Niall and holding him tight.

“I hate you all,” Niall croaks.

“Maybe you should sneeze again,” Liam suggests, once Louis’s complaints have died down and Harry isn’t making faces at him anymore. “I mean, that’s how it started, right…”

“Niall does not have magical sneezing abilities,” Zayn deadpans.

“Do you have any other way to explain it?”

“It doesn’t matter how it happened, yeah? We have a recording to do tomorrow, and if Niall’s not better by then, what are we going to tell everyone?”

“That he grew bunny ears!”

“Lou-“

“Seriously, haven’t any of you read those freaky stories people write about us? They turn us into half-cats and half-dogs! They’d probably go nuts over this.”

Harry frowns, pressing Niall closer to him. The ears twitch, the light fur tickling his nose. “Niall’s not going anywhere until we fix this.”

“I just wanna sleep,” Niall whines over the ensuing argument. “Let me sleep. And make me soup. And give me back my blanket. I’m _sick_ , you bastards.”

 

_

 

Niall takes to hiding in Harry’s room and in Harry’s bed while the others continue their valiant attempts to sort out the situation.

Harry is making soup; Louis is trying to convince the brunet to let him take a picture of Niall; Zayn keeps muttering something about how cute the blond looks; Liam is the only one actually trying out various Google searches.

“Guys,” Liam sighs for the umpteenth time, “can we please focus on helping Niall?”

It erupts into another argument, and Harry takes the opportunity to ladle some soup into a bowl, grab the comforter, and head off for his room.

He finds Niall buried under a mass of pillows and blankets.

“Go away, Louis,” comes a muffled voice.

Harry chuckles, kicking the door shut and effectively drowning out the others. “It’s just me, Ni.”

Niall peeks out hesitantly from under a pillow.

“I brought you soup.” Harry smiles, sitting down by the edge with the bowl in his lap. “You’re going to have to sit up if you want me to feed you, babe.”

“I can feed myself!” Niall wriggles out from the sea of blankets and comes to sit petulantly next to Harry. He accepts the bowl of soup, but makes no move to eat from it. He whispers something that Harry doesn’t quite catch.

Harry wraps an arm around his shoulder and pulls him in. His eyes wander to the fluffy ears atop his boyfriend’s head. “What was that?”

The ears seem to droop. Niall sniffles. “I asked if you think I’m a freak now,” he repeats quietly.

“I don’t think you’re a freak.” Harry tilts Niall’s face towards him, even though his blue eyes are darting nervously back and forth. “I think,” he says, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, “that you are my incredibly adorable boyfriend.” He pokes his nose. “Who happens to have bunny ears for the moment,” he adds cheekily.

His smile widens when he feels the ears twitch. They’re not drooping anymore. Niall starts to eat his soup, and Harry can detect the ghost of a smile along his lips too. “Love you, Hazza,” he murmurs.

“You only like me for my soup,” Harry jokes, planting a kiss on his cheek. “I love you too, Nialler.”

 

_

 

He posts on Twitter: _Someone's sleepy!_ complete with an attached picture of Niall tucked into his arms, fast asleep with his ears fully visible.

There are thousands of retweets and favorites within minutes.

Harry grins, careful not to wake Niall as he types out a reply to the same question most of their fans are asking:

 


End file.
